Aziza Brahim was born in a refugee camp in the Tindorf region of Algeria in 1976. These camps were opened to house Sahrawi refugees fleeing from invading Moroccan forces at the start of the Western Sahara War which lasted from 1975 to 1991. The war was fought between Morocco, which claims sovereignty over the region, and the Algerian-backed Sahrawi Polisario Front, which works for independence for Western Sahara - the Sahrawi are mixed-culture nomads who are the long-term inhabitants of the region.

Although a UN monitored ceasefire came into effect in 1991 the conflict remains unresolved. With Morocco occupying most of the disputed territory many Sahrawi refugees still live in the camps after almost forty years - the exact numbers are disputed but estimates range between 45,000 and 165,000. A UN proposed plebiscite on independence has been repeatedly blocked by Morocco with the connivance of the Western powers, and in the ensuing vacuum the killings have continued, with at least ten dead in a Moroccan raid on a Sahrawi camp in 2010. The UN has now designated the Western Sahara one of world's last remaining major non-self governing territories. Yet media coverage of this protracted humanitarian tragedy is sparse, leaving protest music as the main way of drawing attention to the fate of the Sahrawis.

* Since this was written in 2012 Aziza Brahim has released the acoustic album Soutak. No freebies involved in this post. All photos (c) On An Overgrown Path 2015. Any other copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Also on Facebook and Twitter.